Beverly of Graustark Part 22

"It is accurate, by Jove," exclaimed Lorry. "I doubt if a dweller in the fort could do better. You must have been very observing."

"And very much interested," snarled Marlanx.

"Only so far as I imagined my observations might be of benefit to someone else," said Baldos coolly. Again the silence was like death.

"Do you know what you are saying, Baldos?" asked Lorry, after a moment.

"Certainly, Mr. Lorry. It is the duty of any servant of her highness to give her all that he has in him. If my observations can be of help to her, I feel in duty bound to make the best of them for her sake, not for my own."

"Perhaps you can suggest modifications in the fort," snarled Marlanx. "Why don't you do it, sir, and let us have the benefit of your superior intelligence? No, gentlemen, all this prating of loyalty need not deceive us," he cried, springing to his feet. "The fellow is nothing more nor less than an infernal spy--and the Tower is the place for him!

He can do no harm there."

"If it were my intention to do harm, gentlemen, do you imagine that I should withhold my information for days?" asked Baldos. "If I am a spy, you may rest a.s.sured that Count Marlanx's kindnesses should not have been so long disregarded. A spy does not believe in delays."

"My--my kindnesses?" cried Marlanx. "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean this. Count Marlanx," said Baldos, looking steadily into the eyes of the head of the army. "It was kind and considerate of you to admit me to the fortress--no matter in what capacity, especially at a critical time like this. You did not know me, you had no way of telling whether my intentions were honest or otherwise, and yet I was permitted to go through the fort from end to end. No spy could wish for greater generosity than that."

An almost imperceptible smile went round the table, and every listener but one breathed more freely. The candor and boldness of the guard won the respect and confidence of all except Marlanx. The Iron Count was white with anger. He took the examination out of Lorry's hands, and plied the stranger with insulting questions, each calm answer making him more furious than before. At last, in sheer impotence, he relapsed into silence, waving his hand to Lorry to indicate that he might resume.

"You will understand, Baldos, that we have some cause for apprehension,"

said Lorry, immensely gratified by the outcome of the tilt. "You are a stranger; and, whether you admit it or not, there is reason to believe that you are not what you represent yourself to be."

"I am a humble guard at present, sir, and a loyal one. My life is yours should I prove otherwise."

Yetive whispered something in Lorry's ear at this juncture. She was visibly pleased and excited. He looked doubtful for an instant, and then apparently followed her suggestion, regardless of consequences.

"Would you be willing to utilize your knowledge as an engineer by suggesting means to strengthen the fortress?" The others stared in fresh amazement. Marlanx went as white as death.

"Never!" he blurted out hoa.r.s.ely.

"I will do anything the princess commands me to do," said Baldos easily.

"You mean that you serve her only?"

"I serve her first, sir. If she were here she could command me to die, and there would be an end to Baldos," and he smiled as he said it. The real princess looked at him with a new, eager expression, as if something had just become clear to her. There was a chorus of coughs and a round of sly looks.

"She could hardly ask you to die," said Yetive, addressing him for the first time.

"A princess is like April weather, madam," said Baldos, with rare humor, and the laugh was general, Yetive resolved to talk privately with this excellent wit before the hour was over. She was confident that he knew her to be the princess.

"I would like to ask the fellow another question," said Marlanx, fingering his sword-hilt nervously. "You say you serve the princess. Do you mean by that that you imagine your duties as a soldier to comprise dancing polite attendance within the security of these walls?"

"I believe I enlisted as a member of the castle guard, sir. The duty of the guard is to protect the person of the ruler of Graustark, and to do that to the death."

"It is my belief that you are a spy. You can show evidence of good faith by enlisting to _fight_ against Dawsbergen and by shooting to kill," said the count, with a sinister gleam in his eye.

"And if I decline to serve in any other capacity than the one I now--"

"Then I shall brand you as a spy and a coward."

"You have already called me a spy, your excellency. It will not make it true, let me add, if you call me a coward. I refuse to take up arms against either Dawsbergen or Axphain."

The remark created a profound sensation.

"Then you are employed by both instead of one!" shouted the Iron Count gleefully.

"I am employed as a guard for her royal highness," said Baldos, with a square glance at Yetive, "and not as a fighter in the ranks. I will fight till death for her, but not for Graustark."

CHAPTER XVI

ON THE WAY TO ST. VALENTINE'S

"By Jove, I like that fellow's coolness," said Lorry to Harry Anguish, after the meeting. "He's after my own heart. Why, he treats us as though we were the suppliants, he the alms-giver. He is playing a game, I'll admit, but he does it with an a.s.surance that delights me."

"He is right about that darned old fort," said Anguish. "His knowledge of such things proves conclusively that he is no ordinary person."

"Yetive had a bit of a talk with him just now," said Lorry, with a reflective smile. "She asked him point blank if he knew who she was. He did not hesitate a second. 'I remember seeing you in the audience chamber recently.' That was a facer for Yetive. 'I a.s.sure you that it was no fault of mine that you saw me,' she replied. 'Then it must have been your friend who rustled the curtains?' said the confounded bluffer. Yetive couldn't keep a straight face. She laughed and then he laughed. 'Some day you may learn more about me,' she said to him. 'I sincerely trust that I may, madam,' said he, and I'll bet my hat he was enjoying it better than either of us. Of course, he knows Yetive is the princess. It's his intention to serve Beverly Calhoun, and he couldn't do it if he were to confess that he knows the truth. He's no fool."

Baldos was not long in preparing plans for the changes in the fortress. They embodied a temporary readjustment of the armament and alterations in the ammunition house. The gate leading to the river was closed and the refuse from the fort was taken to the barges by way of the main entrance. There were other changes suggested for immediate consideration, and then there was a general plan for the modernizing of the fortress at some more convenient time. Baldos laconically observed that the equipment was years behind the times. To the amazement of the officials, he was able to talk intelligently of forts in all parts of the world, revealing a wide and thorough knowledge and extensive inspection. He had seen American as well as European fortifications. The Graustark engineers went to work at once to perfect the simple changes he advised, leaving no stone unturned to strengthen the place before an attack could be made.

Two, three weeks went by and the new guard was becoming an old story to the castle and army folk. He rode with Beverly every fair day and he looked at her window by night from afar off in the sombre barracks. She could not dissipate the feeling that he knew her to be other than the princess, although he betrayed himself by no word or sign. She was enjoying the fun of it too intensely to expose it to the risk of destruction by revealing her true ident.i.ty to him. Logically, that would mean the end of everything. No doubt he felt the same and kept his counsel. But the game could not last forever, that was certain. A month or two more, and Beverly would have to think of the return to Was.h.i.+ngton.

His courage, his cool impudence, his subtle wit charmed her more than she could express. Now she was beginning to study him from a standpoint peculiarly and selfishly her own. Where recently she had sung his praises to Yetive and others, she now was strangely reticent. She was to understand another day why this change had come over her. Stories of his cleverness came to her ears from Lorry and Anguish and even from Dangloss. She was proud, vastly proud of him in these days. The Iron Count alone discredited the ability and the conscientiousness of the "mountebank," as he named the man who had put his nose out of joint. Beverly, seeing much of Marlanx, made the mistake of chiding him frankly and gaily about this aversion. She even argued the guard's case before the head of the army, imprudently pointing out many of his superior qualities in advocating his cause. The count was learning forbearance in his old age. He saw the wisdom of procrastination. Baldos was in favor, but someday there would come a time for his undoing.

In the barracks he was acquiring fame. Reports went forth with unbiased freedom. He established himself as the best swordsman in the service, as well as the most efficient marksman. With the foils and sabers he easily vanquished the foremost fencers in high and low circles. He could ride like a Cossack or like an American cowboy. Of them all, his warmest admirer was Haddan, the man set to watch him for the secret service. It may be timely to state that Haddan watched in vain.

The princess, humoring her own fancy as well as Beverly's foibles, took to riding with her high-spirited young guest on many a little jaunt to the hills. She usually rode with Lorry or Anguish, cheerfully a.s.suming the subdued position befitting a lady-in-waiting apparently restored to favor on probation. She enjoyed Beverly's unique position. In order to maintain her att.i.tude as princess, the fair young deceiver was obliged to pose in the extremely delectable att.i.tude of being Lorry's wife.

"How can you expect the paragon to make love to you, dear, if he thinks you are another man's wife?" Yetive asked, her blue eyes beaming with the fun of it all.

"Pooh!" sniffed Beverly. "You have only to consult history to find the excuse. It's the dear old habit of men to make love to queens and get beheaded for it. Besides, he is not expected to make love to me. How in the world did you get that into your head?"

On a day soon after the return of Lorry and Anguish from a trip to the frontier, Beverly expressed a desire to visit the monastery of St. Valentine, high on the mountain top. It was a long ride over the circuitous route by which the steep incline was avoided and it was necessary for the party to make an early start. Yetive rode with Harry Anguish and his wife the countess, while Beverly's companion was the gallant Colonel Quinnox. Baldos, relegated to the background, brought up the rear with Haddan.

For a week or more Beverly had been behaving toward Baldos in the most cavalier fas.h.i.+on. Her friends had been teasing her; and, to her own intense amazement, she resented it. The fact that she felt the sting of their sly taunts was sufficient to arouse in her the distressing conviction that he had become important enough to prove embarra.s.sing. While confessing to herself that it was a bit treacherous and weak, she proceeded to ignore Baldos with astonis.h.i.+ng persistency. Apart from the teasing, it seemed to her of late that he was growing a shade too confident.

He occasionally forgot his differential air, and relaxed into a very pleasing but highly reprehensible state of friendliness. A touch of the old jauntiness cropped out here and there, a tinge of the old irony marred his otherwise perfect mien as a soldier. His laugh was freer, his eyes less under subjugation, his entire personality more arrogant. It was time, thought she resentfully, that his temerity should meet some sort of check.

And, moreover, she had dreamed of him two nights in succession.

How well her plan succeeded may best be ill.u.s.trated by saying that she now was in a most uncomfortable frame of mind. Baldos refused to be properly depressed by his misfortune. He retired to the oblivion she provided and seemed disagreeably content. Apparently, it made very little difference to him whether he was in or out of favor. Beverly was in high dudgeon and low spirits.

The party rode forth at an early hour in the morning. It was hot in the city, but it looked cold and bleak on the heights. Comfortable wraps were taken along, and provision was made for luncheon at an inn half way up the slope. Quinnox regaled Beverly with stories in which Grenfall Lorry was the hero and Yetive the heroine. He told her of the days when Lorry, a fugitive with a price upon his head, charged with the a.s.sa.s.sination of Prince Lorenz, then betrothed to the princess, lay hidden in the monastery while Yetive's own soldiers hunted high and low for him. The narrator dwelt glowingly upon the trip from the monastery to the city walls one dark night when Lorry came down to surrender himself in order to s.h.i.+eld the woman he loved, and Quinnox himself piloted him through the underground pa.s.sage into the very heart of the castle. Then came the exciting scene in which Lorry presented himself as a prisoner, with the denouement that saved the princess and won for the gallant American the desire of his heart.